Posted: Sat., Dec. 31, 1983, 11:00pm PT

Bay Boy

(Canada)

By Variety Staff

ICC. Director Daniel Petrie; Producer John Kemeny, Denis Heroux, Rene Cleitman; Screenplay Daniel Petrie; Camera Claude Agostini; Editor Susan Shanks; Music Claude Bolling; Art Director Wolf Kroeger

Liv Ullmann Kiefer Sutherland Alan Scarfe Mathieu Carriere Peter Donat Isabelle Mejias

Canadian-born director Daniel Petrie had long cherished making a film about his early days in Nova Scotia. Bay Boy is the realization of that dream, but it's far from the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.

Setting is a coastal mining community circa 1937. Principals are a family of non-miners barely eking out an existence during the Depression. Kiefer Sutherland has the pivotal part of Donald Campbell, a teenager whose family envision his future with the clergy. He's more dubious about this path.

The family travails - father's precarious fortunes, brother's debilitating disease, mother's profound religious guilt, etc - are cut with humorous vignettes and insights. However, Donald witnesses the murder of an old Jewish couple by a local policeman.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1984. Running time: 104 MIN.